Lies She Told - Cate Holahan

Summary: Sometimes the truth is darker than fiction.

Liza Jones has thirty days to write the thriller that could put her back on the bestseller list. In the meantime, she’s struggling to start a family with her husband, who is distracted by the disappearance of his best friend, Nick. With stresses weighing down in both her professional and her personal life, Liza escapes into writing her latest heroine.

Beth is a new mother who suspects her husband is cheating on her while she’s home alone providing for their newborn. Angry and betrayed, Beth sets out to catch him in the act and make him pay for shattering the illusion of their perfect life. But before she realizes it, she’s tossing the body of her husband’s mistress into the river.

Then the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur. Nick’s body is dragged from the Hudson and Liza’s husband is arrested for his murder. Before her deadline is up, Liza will have to face up to the truths about the people around her, including herself. If she doesn’t, the end of her heroine’s story could be the end of her own. (Summary and pic from goodreads.com)

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Review: I always love me a good crime thriller mystery. It’s like my go-to comfort read. I like to mix up my reading—I read a lot of things and a lot of genres. I am not someone who completely writes off one genre, although I do have to say I am not a huge lover of fantasy, especially those cheesy old school ones that are obviously made for people who just want to live out their Dungeon & Dragons fantasies (I’m married to a geek so I can say this not only with authority but also with the knowledge of the truth of it). I’m not amused by someone who just wants to read about dungeon crawlings and such. That being said, of course I recognize The Lord of the Rings, the grandfather of this genre, as one of the best and most influential series ever written. That doesn’t mean that I’ll be reading a lot of fantasy in the coming future. I’m not really a huge sci-fi reader, although I’ll read some of that. I almost never read romance, although I enjoy some good chic lit now and then, which can sometimes be romantic. But no bodice ripper books. I can’t even imagine my embarrassment of people thinking I might engage in reading such a thing. Okay, so the more I write this the more I think I am a little biased. However, I really do read a wide variety of things but I do have my comfort zones. Crime/thriller/mysteries are definitely one of those. They’re fun to read (you know, cause death and murder is fun), a fast read, and they usually take little to no brain power. I don’t try to guess whodunit, I just go along for the ride and enjoy it as it comes.

Lies She Told certainly fit this bill. It was a fun and fast read. It didn’t take me long to read it at all, actually. It also had the added advantage of having the type of voice where I could actually feel like I was in this person’s head. This is always a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s fun to be so much of a part of a character that you understand them that much. You feel like you hear their thoughts, their problems are your problems, and it’s easy to be immersed in the story. In this particular novel that was quite disconcerting because obviously with it being a crime/thriller novel there were some things going on that I decidedly don’t want to be a part of in real life. And before you start wondering about me and my hearing the character’s thoughts and all, let’s just clarify that I am nothing really like this character. Our lives are very different in pretty much every way imaginable, but the way that Holahan writes really puts the reader in the main character’s position, which I would say is a bonus.

This isn’t a highly surprising or shocking book with twists and turns. I actually found it predictable in a lot of ways. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it. However, I wouldn’t say that when I got to the end I was super surprised or floored by how it all went down. It could be a good introduction to the genre, though, and readers of books like it, such as Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train would probably very much enjoy it. Serious mystery readers will probably be disappointed, though, as the mystery isn’t too mysterious, per se. I can see that it would probably make a compelling movie.

If you’re looking for something light (you know, murder and mayhem light) and easy to read with an interesting plot and accessible characters, this book is for you.

My Rating: 3.5 Stars

For the sensitive reader: This book has some language and mild sexual content, but I would say it is on the lighter side for books of this genre.